A Tale Retold
by Uchiha Kengura
Summary: Story of Uchiha Kengura, A lost Uchiha warrior that rivaled the powers of even Uchiha Madara. Chapter 3 is updated. Sorry for so long, its been close to a year since writing but im back. 4/1/2008
1. A new Delima

A Tale Retold – The Story of Uchiha Kengura, the lost Sharingan Master

_Told in an ancient dialect, the story of Uchiha Kengura begins years before the Uchiha Clan had risen to power in Konohagakure. The Uchiha clan was still a very powerful house and controlled much territory but was not yet recognized as a member of Konoha. With the Nation young still, living under the rule of its Second Hokage, the Uchiha clan was large compared to other houses. One member, who possessed superb powers of the Sharingan, so skilled, only with two tomoes, that he was a match for the Elite Byakugan Force, An early task force of the house of Hyuuga used by Konoha in the great war as scouts._

_His powers rivaled, possibly surpassing, the powers of the ancient Uchiha Madera. Though not as evil as he, he certainly had a talent using the Sharingan and by the age of 12, was the first ever person elected by the Uchiha clan to enter into the Black Ops force. This age was not rivaled again until the maturation of Uchiha Itatchi, possibly a close relative of Kengura but certainly not a distant one at that._

_**Also, none of this is officially a true background in the Naruto Universe, but could be considered an extension of it. I officially own no part or stake in the Naruto production process and am doing this of my own talent.**_

_**But please, if any descrepancies occur between places or times, please feel free to correct because I want to keep it as close to the normal storyline as possible.**_

_This, is his story _

Chapter one – A scenery grows

thhheww

thhew thhew

thhew thew thew thew

thhew thew thew………….. clang!

"Alright! That's enough Kerone!" said the Sensei. Walking down from the platform, he expertly dodged the last shuriken that was falling from the sky. Looking down at the young boy, he smiled.

"I remembered!" said the small boy across the way, not thirteen yet. "Never let down your guard until the last weapon falls and all is clear!" He quickly yelled over to the master, who was standing next to his 'target.'

"Yes Kerone, but the target is young Kengura, not I," the sensei quickly replied, smiling. Kerone was one of the better weapons students currently out of the academy. A member of a ragtag band, he was not the leader, but he still was teaching his squad new ideas with weapons.

"Yes sensei," he replied, still confidant that he was still able to get that close to Kengura. Kengura was the best in the class… period. There was no-one sharper, or stronger, than he was. He even had is second tomoe when he was only 8! The only person who was stronger so far, that could be found, was an Elite member of the Byakugan Task Force. His name was Hyuuga Hiachi, a young warrior. He was 24 years old and so far, the only person known to be able to beat Kengura in anything.

"Sensei, when will we be able to go on a mission," Kengura posed. He curiously looked up at Naka, waiting for a reply. The black-headed boy's Sharingans, slowly disappearing again from the bright red Sharingan eye, to the more relaxed deep blue that everyone was used to. Kengura, not yet 13, was in the big leagues, ready to take the Chunin exams that came up in just over a month.

"Well that depends… where is your other member of your team?" Naka asked, specifically directing his gaze at Kerone.

"What!!! It's NOT, my fault he wasn't able to dodge that kunai before it him. He had plenty of time to get out of the way." Kerone said sheepishly. Kerone, the youngest member of the team, was also the last to get his second tomoe. All three team members were Uchiha and had the Sharingan eye. Kerone was referring to a problem where during a training exercise; he accidentally struck Tidashi with a kunai. Tidashi was going to be out of training, and out of work, for a good week. The medic-nin said that he would be able to return to active duty within 2 more days.

"It may not seem that way to you Kerone, but as I recall, he never even had weapons during that exercise, which leaves to question how else he was hit. Accident or not, it is in the past, and let us leave it there." He said, turning back to Kengura. "As for a mission, I have talked with the Hokage, and secured a simple D rank mission for you to do. Not the liveliest mission, but it will give some experience for you…"

"A D-rank!!! Not again!!!" Kerone broke in, upset that he had to participate in lowly missions. Only 10, he was very impulsive to participate in the great missions like the First Hokage did before he created Konoha.

"Well if I could finish!" Naka said clearing his throat, "this mission will give you some experience while allowing Tidashi some time to recover as well. It is a simple retrieval and delivery mission. You are to retrieve a package tomorrow from the Hokage and deliver it to the neighboring town of Tesutatchi. There, you will bring back the payment for the package. If you do it quickly, it shouldn't take you more than 3 hours. But if you open the box, or spend any of the yen, there will be serious consequences."

"Well you don't have to be so grumpy about it" Kerone said. "We will get that mission done in 3 hours!" He boasted, quickly dropping his hands knowing that he was the slowest and youngest in the group yet again, he realized that this claim was not very valid. Listening to the forest, he heard someone approaching.

"Naka, who is that?" Kengura asked, looking over at the person, still yards away.

"Ahh, he is here. That is Foshita Gyo. He recently obtained the rank of Tokubetsu Jonin, and will be taking over for me for a while. I have been assigned to another mission for a while so he will be filling in for me. I thought he would be here about an hour ago but I guess he was held up." Naka explained. Naka himself was an Elite Jonin, the mission was an S rank, which was going to penetrate deep into Sand territory to retrieve a lost comrade after an insurgence strike. There would be some heavy opposition, and he was the best man that they could use with demolitions skills and also advanced Sharingan techniques.

"Gyo!" Naka called out. Then he was gone, disappeared into thin air and reappeared next to Gyo. That was the other reason that they needed him to be on the force. He had developed a technique that would allow the user to vibrate their body so quickly, and so minimally, that you were virtually invisible and could move at high speeds.

(For those who know, this is not like the Body Flicker Jutsu, this makes you invisible, not defy time)

"That always creeps me out!" Kerone said, looking over at the two Jonin talking together. Probably saying just look out for them and he would be back in notime, and then he was gone again, zipping back off into the void. He always did that so that no-one could follow him and people who wanted him could only know he would show up. Even with the Sharingan, only one other person was able to copy this technique, though not perfect at it, Kengura could emulate it to a point of usefulness. The Sharingan does have limits to what it can copy on that level of difficulty. Remembering the handsigns and the calls of other Jutsu is easy, but performing something as complex as that has its difficulties. Tadashi had also tried but could not perform it yet.

"Well, where do you want to go to eat? Otoki's ramen or Hidatash for fried noodles?" Kengura quickly asked. He heard his stomach rumbling and then remembered that they had been out training for the past 3 hours and still had not eaten for another 8 past that.

"I don't know if you will be going to either!" Gyo said jokingly, coming up to them. They had done this before, except they had always had Otomo come and "babysit" them while Naka went on high rank missions.

"Ha ha ha, very funny, but if you didn't know, we haven't eaten in close to 10 hours! We are starving." Kerone said, agitated by his quip.

"Well what if I am not kidding" He started, but then conceded defeat.

"Well, I want to go to Otoki. I love his ramen and he has a new recipe for making pork ramen." Kengura said, looking over at Kerone who nodded in agreement. Gyo just shrugged his shoulders not caring which, for he had just eaten.

Beginning the trek back home, they started a competition on who could beat who by throwing shuriken infront of them and aiming at seemingly random targets. Kerone was very artistic using the shuriken and kunai, always adding in extra twists, throwing extra moves, rolling with his throws, and essentially making it a very intricate ballet. Kengura on the otherhand stayed to straightforward shots, and was not a match for Kerone with his Sharingan activated. Kengura usually did this so that he could better himself without a Sharingan, because what is the use of an arm if the fingers were gone? He had always questioned this and made sure that he was proficient in other things as he was when he had his Sharingan activated. Unfortunately, weapons were his weakness in his Sharinganless state. At least his weakness was still a match for a fully armed Kerone, Sharingan and all.

Sitting down later at Otoki's Ramen shop, Gyo quickly scanned a paper for interesting headlines, and then found a section on current mission status and the MIA list. Gyo had a brother, that was 2 years older than he was, who was lost about 3 years ago. A mission that almost cost Konoha some of its best soldiers, including Naka and the Hokage. Gyo always scanned the MIA sections of the paper for any sign that they had found at least the remains.

He let a slow sigh out of his lungs. Again, no change, as it had been for 3 years. In a full fighting retreat, Naka and the Hokage had both lost track of Gyo's brother, south of the sand village. They had gone back with survey teams but they found no evidence that he had even been there.

"Your right! He does make good ramen!"  
"I told you he did!"  
"but his recipes arn't legendary!"

The banter continued for some time while Gyo sat in full astonishment at how strong the bond between Kengura and Kerone was. It was almost as if they were brothers, but they were not. One could almost mistake them for one another from afar but up close you could tell the differences, mainly their heights.

"Well here, lets go now. I feel that the restaurant has had its free entertainment for the night." Gyo stated. The two boys, completely oblivious, were stopped, both holding chopsticks in the air over empty bowls as they debated the best style of noodles. Kengura supported ramen while Kerone supported Fried noodles and sweet noodles. Looking around, they could see the entire restaurant looking at them, some laughing, others smiling at the heated debate.

"Ugh… I forgot how public this place was." Kerone said. Standing to leave he threw a tip on the table and turned to Gyo. "So will you be supervising our mission tomorrow?" He quickly asked that so they could know who to find when they went to the Hokage's tower.

"What mission?" Gyo responded. He know what he was talking about but to see the confusion well up in side the boy was hilarious. "I'm kidding, I'm kidding, yes I will be the supervisor tomorrow." He said, wiping a tear from his eye. Getting up to leave, he was stopped by the owner of the shop.

"Here, if you have to deal with them, here is some ramen on the house" Said Otoki. He chuckled to himself as he watched them both walk off toward their homes. Gyo took the bag, and left, knowing that somehow, someway, tomorrow is not going to be just a simple mission.


	2. A second coming

Chapter two – A second coming

_The eye, with a Sharingan that has not been seen for ages, looks out over the plain. The man who carries it, a tall, lanky figure with an aura as mild as a young child looks out over the plains._

_He leaps from his cliff-top perch, falling 20 feet to the ground, looking around he searches for something. Moving faster than the eye can see, he moves around what might be a battlefield, looking for something undescribed._

_He looks to the left, and then to the right, then leaps up onto another cliff, overlooking the battlefield again. Then, a sight that would harrow peoples bones. A battlefield as gloomy as anything, and could only be worsened if it were filled with death. Smoke and dust, rises and looms over the battlefield, most of the landscape is utterly destroyed._

_Surveying his landscape the figure again, leapt down onto the battleground and again starts to move about the landscape, leaping over parts of forests like small puddles and running through craters as large as buildings. The figure starts again to run but then stops, looking at a particular area of the battlefield. Surveying hard, he starts to move toward the area that seems to be where a pond used to be as a large dragon formed from the water on the ground. Water Dragon Jutsu was a common Jutsu used, and easily countered by the Sharingan. Quickly jumping past it he found the conjuror._

_Running up to him and throwing quickly, a kunai followed by a shadow strike, the opponent began to lose the battle. Jumping down to avoid the kunai, he missed the one in its shadow and it hit just as he fell out of sight._

_Jumping down to his level, the figure looked around for his opponent, no blood, just water. A water clone? Possibly, but unlikely. He began to turn around as the opponent shot out of the ground piercing him in the stomach with a kunai._

_"I told you, I would win!" the menacing voice said, shrouded by a demonic shadowy face with piercing red eyes. And then that three seconds, just turned into the worst three days of his life._

Shooting up in a cold sweat, Kengura looked around to make sure his surrounding were still there. They weren't, he was in his room again. Rubbing his head, he looked over toward the dresser, thinking about the images, the sounds, the sights in his head. These dreams came and went sometimes, replaying events such as this one. Lying in his bed again, he looked up toward the ceiling making patterns in the ceiling with the bumps.

Slowly, he recounted what he was doing there and looking into the window he realized that he was not in the morning anymore. They had do be at Hokage Tower at 1! He leapt out of bed and scurried over to the clock, oh, it was only 12:30. He had some time. Since he was already out of bed, he decided to get ready and go do something with the time that he found out that he had. After taking a shower and putting on his uniform, he decided to go and see if Otoki's was open. His ramen store was raided, looking at the mess of cups; he decided it must have been Kerone sometime in the past two days. They haven't been home much so he would have been able to get in and out without a problem.

He sighed, looking at the pile of empty cups, and then started to leave. Turning to the door, he quickly grabbed his hat and kunai belt and led himself out.

Arriving at Otoki's, he halfway suspected it to be filled with people, and for Gyo to be there. But surprisingly, the place was empty. Two or three guests sat at the bar drinking what could only be sake. He went and grabbed a seat at a table near the door.

"Hey Kengura!" said the waitress.

"Hey Nika, what's on special today?" He asked, looking at her new uniform. Nika was one of three children that Otoki had. Nika is the oldest, 22 with beautiful flowing blonde hair. The other sister Sakira also worked there. She was four years younger than Nika. Their brother was Anbu, not much would be said about him other than he was the youngest and around the age of 17. He was just accepted after he got his Chunin rank after the second attempt of his squad.

"Right now, we are going to have a special on pork and egg ramen. Honestly I don't like it that much but I guess I have never had a taste for pork," she explained. Looking over the menu she quickly found her favorite, Chicken and lentil ramen with two egg halves.

"I think I will have the egg and cheese ramen. Not very practical but it tastes pretty good."

"Alright, give me a few minutes!" Naki waved back at him as she walked back off into the kitchen. He saw Otoki stirring a huge vat of noodles. Pre-cooking the noodles for use with whatever people order was a good idea Kengura thought. Then all you had to do was prepare whatever was going to go into the noodles. He also presumed that there were eggs in the bottom of the bucket cooking as well.

Naki bumbled around in the kitchen a minute, waiting for the order to be filled. She looked over at Kengura, admiring him. The Uchiha clan always had some mystery to it. Some unique passion for their gift, and the ability to use it like an extension of their body, like the Hyuuga clan. Not like other bloodlines which are purely used for causing war, but they made it have practical uses. All throughout the village, people wanted the use of Sharingan users to help them with things, especially contractors. They always made special notes when they made requests for help to have a Sharingan user so they could help look for any defects in structures. A plate was finally put in front of her and she grabbed it, thinking nothing of the present, just stuck up in her fantasies of a young woman took the plate to Kengura.

Reaching out to get the plate he leapt out of his chair to catch the bowl before it fell.

"Naki!" He yelled, "Watch it!" taking and setting down the bowl. She had been so caught up in thinking about random things that she had completely lost track of what she was doing. Most people knew that this is why she could never pass as a Konochi. She was not able to keep her mind on the missions. Instead, she was able to get a job in her dads business.

"Sorry, I'm just thinking again." Walking back off to the kitchen, he wondered if she would ever get to be able to control it. Forgetting for the moment, he dived into his bowl of ramen, quickly absorbing the noodles in minutes. Looking at the empty bowl, as a few drops of the remaining soup, slowly collected at the bottom, it slowly formed a reflective pool. Looking at it, he saw a brown version of himself staring out of the pool, blue eyes twinkling in the sunlight. He put the bowl down, and went to the door, almost forgetting to leave the payment.

"Where is he? Didn't someone tell him that we were to meet at 1 instead?" Gyo asked. Confused about where Kengura had wandered off to. Kerone stumbled around the meeting room. He had gone to Kengura's house to find him, but he wasn't there. It was now 1:30, and he had gone to see where he was about 10 minutes earlier. Everyone had just decided to meet up at the tower and wait for him to appear. They all waited for him to show up, Tidashi was feeling better and was allowed to get off of bed rest a day early to go on the mission. Tidashi looked through his shining green eyes out over the plains. Quickly activating the Sharingan he had, he scanned the scenery trying to find any sign of Kengura. Nothing yet, he turned around as he looked over and deactivated his Sharingan. Turning around, he looked at the crowd and Kengura walked in the door.

"You always had a way with timing!" Tidashi said, bored after having to stay.

"Well, I'm early, what are you talking about." He said, looking at everyone.

"The mission got switched up to 1… We guess no one got to you early enough." Gyo explained "But now that we are all here, we can get this mission started!" They all turned to the Hokage for the assignment. Waiting a moment, he rifled through some papers on his desk looking for the mission assignment.

"Alright, today, your team is to take a package from the bottom floor to a nearby village for delivery. They are expecting this package within the next few hours and you need to get it there soon. The only requirements are that you get it there before 5 and that you do NOT open the package; under any circumstances do not open it." He stopped for a moment to let the team absorb their instructions and then waved his hand for them to go. Gyo came forward to the Hokage as the others left.

"I will make sure that the package gets opened before they reach the destination." Gyo said, smiling.

"IF, you can get them, it will be a mighty surprise. But as it stands now, just don't lay a hand on the package. They need to be able to transport precious cargo without question. If they can finish this part of the tests, they will pass the Chunin exams with no difficulty at all." The Hokage smiled, knowing that unless Gyo was completely persuasive or posed a situation that the package was opened accidentally, that Tidashi would sooner kill either of them for trying to open it. His drive to play by the books was stronger than any ninja of his age. If it was bending the rules, then he would not go along with it, unless a real threat posed them. Nodding his head, Gyo quickly moved out to return to the group.

Downstairs, the team had already received the package and saw that it was no more than an ordinary box. No seals or booby traps to speak of. Looking at it, Kerone began to wonder what was inside. Keeping this urge to himself, he distanced himself from the box. Tidashi grabbed the box, whirling it around. No seals on the bottom either. Either this was a test, or this was just a simple delivery.

'I don't think we should open it. If we do, something bad is going to happen to the person who does' Tidashi thought, as he slowly surveyed the box. Even the Sharingan did not detect a thing that looked abnormal on the box. Satisfied with his findings, he put it in his pack to take with them.

"Why don't we look inside the box Tidashi?" Kerone said. His resolve to keep his hands to himself gone.

"Because, we have been told not to," Tidashi quickly responded, waiting for how long he might have been able to hold out. They all started to laugh as Gyo walked in. 'They didn't open it already did they?' he asked himself.

Walking up, "Everyone ready to go? We have a ways to travel to get to the village," he said slowly going to the door. Everyone in the room followed him out, into the village and then out of the gates.

Slowly over the travel, they went. Sometimes stopping to have to break up another heated debate on some random subject from Kengura and Kerone. Tidashi always was practicing with his kunai, slashing in the air and occasionally letting one fly into a tree up ahead. Soon, Kerone joined in and they turned it into a shooting match, continuously making new shots and trying to take each other down. Though younger than Tidashi by 3 years, Kerone was still the better weapons person there. Equally able to stop opponents in their tracks with his precision to that of a trained gun wielder.

About halfway to the village to deliver the package, they dropped out at a small town to eat.

"Let me go see if they have a ramen hut here." Kengura said. Unavoidably starting another conflict he turned away from Kerone before he could speak.

"That sounds fine but let's get something we can eat on the road. We are on a timeline you know." Gyo replied, looking at Kerone, who was about to explode about Fried Noodles again. Holding his hand up, "I think we are just going to get some rice balls to take with us. I think that would let us keep time."

"I would agree with that," Tidashi said. Kerone now calmed down about not getting to speak out against ramen since they were not going to eat it. He slowly eyed the shops for any sign of rice balls.

"There, over at the 4th stall. They sell rice balls there."

"No they don't, they sell rice cakes. The rice balls are at the 5th stall." Kengura corrected.

"Oh… I meant the 5th," he said, scratching his head.

"Well let's go, the longer we wait the less time we have for the mission." Gyo said, and with gang in tow, they went to the stall.

Happily fed and properly nourished, the team was back on the road, going toward the village. Slowly trudging along, they made good time, not stopping often. They eventually made their way to when the village was in sight.

"Ah finally, civilization!" Gyo said. Much of the scenery that they had passed by had been grass, grass, and more grass. Tired of seeing a preverbal Sea of Green, he was glad to see the village again… "Wait, something's wrong," he said. Looking at the village, there was no movement, no life to the village. It was literally as if they entire village was dead.

"What's wrong Sensei?" Kerone asked, not seeing what he was.

"Everyone get your guard up. Something isn't right here" He said, eyes flashing from brown to red. All three tomoes started to spin as he surveyed the town. No movement whatsoever. "Alright, move quickly, to the village!" he commanded, rushing forward toward the gates of the village. The rest of the team quickly followed suit, realizing that this was not part of the mission. They moved quickly to the gate of the village, looking out to the west. One of the gates had been completely obliterated; the other looked like it had been hit. Hit so hard that it broke the hinges off the post it hung from. Inside the village, the parallel streets and symmetrical alleys lay in disarray, strewn with pots, furniture, and other debris. Ahead, dead center about 300 yards away was the town meeting house. A large traditional Japanese building with red shingling and a modest exterior. It was accompanied by a now destroyed cherry garden. Flower petals lay everywhere on the ground as they walked past the groves of dead and destroyed trees. Bodies lay in the streets, all with stab wounds not from a kunai, and their clothes soaked with water. Each one soaked around the stab area and nowhere else on their bodies. The wounds were clean, and bled little, indicating something was there to keep them from bleeding before they died. Something that was not there now. Gyo stepped over to a villager to check his wounds. There were so many stab wounds, that the woman should have been covered in blood, yet only traces of blood were on her clothes and were soaked with water.

"The body is cold." He said, feeling her neck and shoulders.

"But shouldn't a dead person feel cold?" Tidashi asked.

"The temperature of a dead body remains at normal temperature for about an hour, then it goes down to air temperature. No, her body temperature is cold, colder than it is now, colder than it has been recently." He explained, clearly puzzled at what might be going on. "Come on; let's go to the meeting house. Possibly the survivors were gathered there." He said, waving his hands over her eyes. The group moved fast to the doors.

"Stay here, I will go in and check out the building. Get on top of the building and survey the landscape. Look for anyone in the immediate vicinity of the village. Even animals." He said, as he opened the door. As he disappeared inside the strange building, the three companions ran up the walls and perched on top of the building. Slowly looking over the area, they saw nothing.

"Why is the village dead?" Tidashi quietly asked himself, trying to piece together the evidence. Even so, he could not draw a complete picture of what might have happened.

BAM, a resounding hit came from inside the building, a few of the shingles shook loose and fell to the ground.

Thew thew thew thew

Kunai, no something was being projected from the building. In all directions, small slivers of silvery substances shot out in every direction in the building. Then the roof became the next target, items shooting out from the ground below them.

"Senbon!" Kerone said.

"No, they aren't. They are ice Senbon." Kengura said. Looking over the area, ice needles flew out of the building around them, breaking through the shingling one by one.

"We need to get off of this now!" Tidashi said, about to leap as Kengura caught him by the pants.

"No, if we get off now we might get hit. Lets wait until they stop coming out. The clay shingles at least give us some protection." Kengura said. Sure enough, another huge wave of needles emanated from the building, followed by a raging ball of fire.

"LET'S GO!!!," Gyo Screamed, running out of the building, returning fire with a Demon Shuriken. Not hesitating a moment, the three drew kunai and leapt out behind him and started to run as he held off their foe. Slowly retreating, Gyo yelled back "Tidashi, throw me the box!"

"What!!!" Tidashi screamed, not realizing that he needed to do this now.

"The box Tidashi, throw him the box!" Kerone screamed, jumping into his pack and getting the box. He threw it over to Gyo who had just avoided another sliver of ice enough to grab the package. Throwing the package over toward the foe he followed it with a kunai, cutting it open to reveal a great flash of light erupting around the enemy.

"GOGOGOGOGOGO!!!" He screamed, running for the door. They had narrowly escaped. Soon after the light engulfed the enemy he fell to the floor in pain, disabled enough to allow them the time to escape.

Running for the hills, the team met up in the village they had stopped to eat in earlier. Stopping to catch their breath they sat down for a moment.

"What was that?" Tidashi asked, curious to why they almost got killed in a D-rank mission.

"I have no clue at this moment, but we need to get back to the Hokage now and tell him what happened." Gyo said… slowly regaining his poseur. "Let's go, the sooner we get back the better. IF we do, we might be able to get another elite team out here to find out what happened to the village."

"Well what are we waiting here for?" Kengura asked. They all caught their breath and then began the trek back to the village. This strange new enemy was a ruthless killer, and had to be stopped, and they had been the only people to leave and know what he looked like. But it did not do them much good. A person in a dress looking outfit and in a decorated war mask was hardly a description. They all knew that this would not be over soon.


	3. A History Unveiled

Chapter 3 – A day comes

_"I told you to torch it!"_

_"Wow, you sure know me. I can use Ice, how am I going to torch a place without fuel?"_

_"Well, you should have burned the town to the ground. Now they have evidence"_

_"Umm. Excuse me, but I went on the mission to kill not destroy."_

_"Well then maybe I should have sent Nateo. He loves fire."_

_"He loves destruction. I love art."_

_"Well your 'Art' almost cost the operation and has revealed us to the public"_

_"We would have been anyway"_

_"That's not the point!"_

_"Well that's my point. We would be revealed anyway so why not now! If you would have sent Nateo, he would have just torched the place and there would be a giant band of Ninja sitting on our doorstep. They would be suspicious. At least this way, they will only send a few patrols looking for one single ninja, not a whole hoard of hooligans."_

_"And if you're wrong in your 'predictions'?"_

_"…"_

_"Well, I am curious."_

_"…"_

_"If you don't answer, you may as well turn in your membership."_

_"The more people, the more targets."_

_"Well, at least we are thinking of ourselves rather than nothing at all."_

_"I would do it for the kill count, not your glory and honor based on nothing and a system that is widespread insufficiently against their home protection. If they sent out their entire band of ninja, they would find us, most likely, they still won't. Only thing is, if they do, we would be able to silence them much faster."_

_"Hmm… that's a good point. Hopefully one day, you may become better than all of your predecessors."_

_"I already am."_

_"How do you suppose that?"_

_"I'm better than you."_

Back at headquarters, teams gathered, all Jonin except for one single team. The team with all the Intel. The team was the talk of the village gennin as the "Dream Team". A team of the three best in their class that get to go onto an A rank before they had even successfully completed a B. Kengura, Kerone, and Tidashi were standing alone in front of the Hokage. Other teams of Jonin surrounded his desk, all looking at giant picture board maps with search patterns and towns laid out. Kengura looked around the room, slowly from the left to the right, mapping out each possible item of interest. Flowerpots, keys, rods, chairs, pencils, all the way down to stacks of papers and even the small pockets of dust on the floor. He concentrated on the dust, watching it as it seemed to, ebb. Slowly, it seemed to ebb as he watched it, then he thought about it making a small pile and it started to move upward, climbing into a small little pile of dirt.

"Kengura! Are you paying attention?" Hokage asked. Visibly irritated, it appeared that he had asked more than once or that they had started earlier. He looked back at the dirt and it was just a pile. He had just let his daydreaming get the best of him.

"Now, you three tell me if you saw him?" He asked again, to get the point across to Kengura.

"Honestly, we only saw ice Senbon being thrown from the building. Some came close to getting us before we got to the roof beam." Tidashi explained. Kerone nodded in agreement as the three companions stood there. Staring down the sea of Jonin at their immediate front, they appeared as the only source of knowledge other that Gyo's dialogue of the fight. Other than that, they had no one to even begin questioning about the location of this new foe. All they knew was that he wore a facemask with paint on it.

"Sir!" an assistant called for the Hokage running into the room. "There was a report a few months ago, when a supply convoy was attacked by a strange man wearing a lot of war paint or a mask. They were on their way into the Rice country as well. I remembered the mission because a friend of mine died on that convoy." He explained, waiting for anything satisfactory from the Hokage. None, it just confirmed fears that this person has been around long enough to gain specific Intel, enough to take on ninja convoy and win.

Dismissing his assistant, he motioned for all of the Jonin around to gather in front of him. "Alright, now, I want all of the Jonin in pairs with 3 Chunin accompanying them. The three Genin here, are to run with 3 Jonin and 4 Chunin. So, 7 teams of 5, and one team of 10. Teams 1-3, you search through the country. Teams 4 and 5, you set up camp at the designated spot. Team 6, run recon through the forest between teams. Team 8, run recon to base. Teams 9 and 10, set up the triage area and assist in looking for any survivors.

"Hokage!" the assistant yelled, running back to the room. "We just got a message, another town was hit, this time, burned to the ground."

"Where!" He quickly asked.

"30 miles south of the border, close to the other border." The assistant replied, catching his breath.

"Scratch all of that. Everyone, come with me, we will set up camp later, lets try and get whoever is this. Jonin, you have a list of the Chunin to collect. 20 min, front gate, MOVE!" Everyone in the room went straight for the windows. A cloud of ninja quickly formed, flowing out of the tower toward their destinations. Kengura and Tidashi went to recover a few supplies and some rations to take. Kerone, was asked to help recover one of the Chunin that was not alerted with the rest of them.

_"I thought I told you not to go through with the mission!!!"_

_"No, you said to do the mission."_

_" Don't try that reverse psychology on ME! I told you to wait for instructions after the other incident Nateo."_

_"I only followed the instructions I was given. And those were to burn the town."_

_"Well you were late, and I told you NOT to burn the town."_

_"…"_

_"You are to remove yourself from active, and to reevaluate how you will portray yourself while you spend time underground in the mine."_

_"I still got the job done, unlike Tenedeto, he didn't even do what was expected"_

_"But at the same time, Tenedeto did his done on time AND he didn't draw attention from the ENTIRE NATION OF KONOHA!!! Hopefully, the town you torched was so far from the border, they wont come to investigate the burning and just leave it to the Sand."_

_"Well if you find my methods immoral…"_

_"Immoral! I would consider them insane you backstabbing moron! Now I am going to kill you personally if you do not go now!"_

"Alright, how many do we still have missing? None, good, lets get out of here. We should at full speed, reach the village in the Rice Country in several hours." All of the highly trained Jonin surrounded the Gennin in the group, everyone looking sharp. One of the main reasons that they were being allowed to come is because they had been the ones to discover the foe, and all of their sharingans may come in handy. All in all, 45 Ninja + the Medical Nin, and also the Hokage himself, over 60 ninja were going on this mission. Included within them are 15 medics, 4 Sharingan users, 13 Weapons Specialists, 4 Byakugan Users, 5 fire wielders, 3 Trap masters, 3 Beast tamers, and some random assistants. All readying to leave, people came from the village, bringing small pieces of offerings and gifts, others bringing provisions for the journey and some had brought extra weapons and an elder came.

"I will go with you. I have business with you anyway Hokage." She said, slowly moving toward them.

"Why should I let you put yourself in peril? What skills have you to benefit our mission?" He responded, sidestepping across toward the old woman. She looked at him and before he could take another step he was suspended in air by strings he did not even see.

"I am an enhancer, I have many abilities that lie in chakra weaving with weapons and other items. Also, I was tempted with the art of puppetry for a while. It helps." She slowly loosened the grip she had with the chakra enhanced wires, setting him down on the ground. The chakra infused strings slowly coiling in her hands, spooling into a neat little ball until it was tight. Putting it back into her sleeve, the old woman slowly sidestepped the Hokage and went into the array of people.

"Enhasa?" The Hokage said, staring at the woman wondering.

"Yes… I am her. Not the one you remember though. She died years ago…" Bowing her head in reverence to something that she knew personally, the Hokage also mimicked this. Somehow, he either knew of or had something to do with it. At the present moment though, there was no hesitation in his breath after collecting himself when he ordered them to move out, he told them to stop and rest almost there at Kiresato, the cloth village. They would stop there, sending out a Sharingan and two Byakugan to scope out the area to approach the village that had been burned to the ground. No telling how the sand would take it, looking at the situation, it may look to the sand like an approaching attack and they may send over ninja to the border to intercept ninja, it may be a good idea to send a message over explaining the situation once they arrive at Kiresato. Bringing up the rear and getting a few of the straggling ninja with the heavier equipment, he slowly edged over to Enhasa.

"I see that you are still willing to try and kill me as always." He quipped, slowly jabbing her in the side.

"Yes… well I was always trying to get you. Never could but at the same time, you had never presented much of a threat to anyone. Always using your powers to make up the country and even brokering for the finally release of tensions from the Sand. That took skills… skills I did not have when you were chosen as Hokage… skills that you already possessed." She entailed, slowly advancing past his strides, naturally competing with him. He matched her small adjustment and did the same. Amused, they did this for a time, trying to overtake each other as he made sure that all of the equipment was transported properly over to the new site. They would probably make the base/triage center about 10 miles south of Kiresato, just close enough to get help if needed but also not far from the site of the fire. This fire, it couldn't have been related to the other attack. The other attack was precise, no wasted shots, no destruction, just death. This one was more destructive, more powerful, just a giant assault, no real skill involved.

_"Nateo is out of the program…"_

_"I would have assumed so, I just heard about his… escapades…"_

_"This complicates thing beyond belief now, you at least did not attract attention as you have mentioned. I have recently gained intelligence that an entire force of Konoha ninja are moving into the Rice country. Their numbers top 25 Jonin, most are Elites. Also, the Sand believes that the assault of the village was Konoha trying to divert attention as they use forces to take the country and stage an assault on the Sand Nation."_

_"So, we could use this to our advantage…"_

_"Possibly."_

_"I could __**eliminate**__ someone in sand territory next. It would look like Konoha had assaulted a village in the Sand Nation territory."_

_"That may work. Konoha is coming here to investigate the fire so if they also suspect that there is another attack, we may be able to drive their force apart and split them up. So maybe, if they think that there is another attack they will investigate, and so will the sand, and then they will meet on the battlefield and fight each other as we can wait for them to kill themselves."_

_"That's a decent plan… but one flaw."_

_"What would that be Tenedeto?"_

_"They still have not assembled a full force, if we do that, then they will… and they will search the entire rice country because of one thing."_

_"That would be…"_

_"There is no one in the Sand that can use water Chakra like I do. That skill comes from training in the Mist. They will see that the sand is not involved unless someone who could impersonate Sand ninja did the job."_

_"What about a sand ninja himself?"_

_"How would we turn one?"_

_"Why does he have to turn, why can't he just be controlled?"_

_"You perfected the technique? That Jutsu is supposed to be one of the most complicated that a non bloodline person could attempt. As opposed to it, it is the only one that you can learn outside of the bloodline but it is the hardest of them. How, may I ask?"_

_"I had to find a bloodline and then I simply, took his blood…"_

_"So a transfusion does carry the techniques abilities…"_

_"Some. HE, theorized that the mental abilities of clans and bloodlines could be obtained from moving blood from one person to another, as can you do for the Sharingan and Byakugan. Some other bloodlines that are carried in the bones or the capabilities of the body are impossible, like the clan that can morph their bones?"_

_"Yes I have heard of them. Strong clan, there were many of them, but few understand the full power of their bloodlines."_

_"Well, I can use this one to a limited extend."_

_"Then its game on for the Konoha ninja then, such a wakeup call when the sand come to attack."_

_"Yes, a good one too."_

_"So you will go alone?"_

_"No, my dear friend, I still need someone to help, 'Catch' the ninja we intend to use…"_

Kengura woke up in a cold sweat. They had been at the town for a while now, planning the next move. The Hokage had gotten the Elite and set up a tent to find the proper strategy to get the job done. He had had the dream again, but this time, the battle turned in his favor and he was able to take the opponent down by forcing a kunai into his leg. Before he could reply his name, another weapon, possibly a Senbon, struck him. A shadowy figure had disappeared behind a puff of smoke on the hillside away. Stretching, he tried to remember some of the recent dreams. He had lost count of what had happened in each one but every time, there were almost always 3 figures, himself, his opponent, and a skilled ninja that never came close that used Senbon.

Brushing it off as pure coincidence, he stood. As soon as he did, a shuriken grazed his hair. Ducking down to miss the second one, he turned around. The tree above him was being used as a target by Tidashi. Taking another look, there were Kunai and Shuriken marks all over the tree around him, most were fresh, others starting to sap over.

"How long have you been missing me!?" He asked, turning around realizing how much danger he had been in as he slept.

"Not long, enough for me to get off about a few dozen waves around you. Don't worry though; the closest I came was 4 cm from you." Tidashi said, brushing off the anger. Kengura showed a mixed expression of anger and admiration. He had always been good with weapons. It made up for his weakness in performing jutsu. Tidashi preferred the feel of steel in his hand anyway, and always practiced with weapons if he had a choice. Kerone and Kengura were both extremely proficient with both, but were still below Tidashi in level with weapons training. They both had extremely proficient skills in Jutsu, and with the help of the Sharingan, were able to already master a handful of advanced jutsu not available normally to Genin. One of these is the speed technique that Gyo knew.

Kengura walked over to a small bench that had enough holes in it to look like a drilling post. Sitting on it was out of the question; even his small amount of weight would snap it in half. Staring out over the encampment, they were still waiting for any word regarding the destruction of the village. Completely burned to the ground, it was a sight to see. He sat on the ground and thought for a time as a few stragglers finally worked their way to the camp with the heavier equipment. He thought about what he had seen, the sharingan tracked the motions of the ice user. He was graceful, extremely personified and used his motions to enhance his abilities. This, torching, seemed uncoordinated and randomized, but not as random as they would need to believe.

"Kengura!" Kerone yelled as he jumped and ran to a tent. Dashing off after him, Kerone knew he was on to something. "Kengura what did you find?" He said, watching him sift through a crate in the tent.

"Maps, maps of the area." This was all he said for a few moments as he dug, winding around 2 maps he had of the area. Laying them out he threw them out over the table and using kunai he marked the maps areas where the damages were. They were intersecting in distance at 2 points, with a third attack possibly imminent it might be possible to orient themselves with if they were dealing with personified attacks.

"Kengura… I can't say much if you don't speak up! All you did was mark the attack sites..." Kerone paused, looking at the map and then throwing two more kunai down on the map.

"What is that for?" Kengura said, looking up at him.

"The first," Holding his hand on the kunai closest to him, "is the location of the attack on the convoy by a man with no weapons, who left marks on ninja, and was covered in face paint.

"And the second?" Kengura continued at his comments, motioning to a kunai that was in the center of all three.

"That… is the location of a village that was destroyed by completely burning the town and no survivors." Kerone paused and looked down at the map.

"There wasn't a fourth attack though." Kengura said. "Yes there was…" Tidashi said as he walked in the tent.

"Ahh, so at least you know what I'm talking about?" Kerone said, turning to him. "All I know is what happened, I heard about it about 6 years ago."

Tidashi paused at the end of the table looking over the maps and up at Kerone. "I'm surprised you heard even that…" he said pausing. "I never told you about it so who told you?" he asked, eying Kerone carefully.

"Told him what?" Kengura exclaimed emphatically, very annoyed that they were holding this from him.

"The fire of Okisan." Tidashi said.


End file.
